Gerbrand Ban

Portrait of a Young Man

1650

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, centre left (G and B ligated):GBan / 1650

Technical notes

Support The oval copper plate is approx. 0.1 cm thick.
Preparatory layers The single, smooth, reddish ground extends up to the edges of the support. It consists of orange-red pigment with a small addition of black pigment particles.
Underdrawing Infrared photography revealed some dark lines at the nose and the right hand which could be part of a preparatory drawing in a liquid medium or of a painted initial lay-in in monochrome colours.
Paint layers The paint extends up to the edges of the support. It was applied in a very straightforward manner, mainly wet in wet and without the use of reserves. Some final touches were deftly placed in the last stage to create texture and volume, to indicate the curls for instance. Small changes were made to the contour of the hair. The paint layer is fairly smooth, with the exception of the flesh tones and the areas of white clothing. Brushstrokes are also visible to some extent in the dark doublet.
Willem de Ridder, 2022

Scientific examination and reports

  • infrared photography: W. de Ridder, RMA (no image available), 2008
  • paint samples: W. de Ridder, RMA, nos. SK-A-1345/1-2, 12 maart 2008
  • technical report: W. de Ridder, RMA, 12 maart 2008
  • infrared photography: W. de Ridder, RMA, 30 november 2021

Condition

Good. There are some small paint losses, mainly along the edges of the support. There is a small area at the bottom with tiny protrusions in the paint layer, possibly a result of local corrosion. The varnish is discoloured.

Provenance

…; sale, Jan Hendrik Cremer (1813-1885, Arnhem and Ixelles), Amsterdam (F. Muller et al.), 26 October 1886, no. 105, fl. 103.50, to De Vries, for the museum1NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 166, nos. 100 (25 October 1886), 101 (25 October 1886), 102 (26 October 1886), 104 (27 October 1886), 119 (2 December 1886, no. 2633); NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 289, p. 119, no. 267 (15 December 1886).

ObjectNumber: SK-A-1345

The artist

Biography

Gerbrand Ban (Haarlem c. 1612-13 - Enkhuizen 1652)

On his betrothal in 1640 Gerbrand Ban stated that he was 27 years old, which would put his date of birth around 1612-13. He was the son of the Haarlem brewer Albrecht Ban and his wife Ermgard van Beresteyn. The name of his teacher is not known, but since he grew up in Haarlem it could have been the local master Pieter de Grebber, judging by the St Barbara from the early 1630s,2Present whereabouts unknown; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 427, fig. 1. his only signed picture of a historical subject. Ban’s second cousin, the Haarlem priest and musician Jan Albertsz Ban, was a friend of De Grebber’s. Little is known about Gerbrand Ban’s beginning as an artist. It was not until 26 July 1640, when he became betrothed to Willemyntje Boele, that he was documented in Amsterdam, where he was active as a painter and art dealer. Most of his known oeuvre, though, was executed in Enkhuizen, where he lived from 1648 at the latest. He was buried in the town’s Zuiderkerk between 8 and 13 May 1652.

Ban’s extant oeuvre consists of ten works. The earliest is probably the aforementioned St Barbara. His first dated painting is only from 1647, Portrait of a One-Year-Old Boy.3London, private collection; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 429, fig. 4. There are other pictures of unknown sitters and one of an unidentified family,4Catalogue for the sale, London (Christie’s), 19 April 2000, no. 20 (ill.). as well as a Still Life with Fruit.5Present whereabouts unknown; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban: Een aanvulling’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 40 (1992), p. 93, fig. 1. Ban’s last known work, the Portrait of Simon Semeijns,6Stichting Verzameling Semeijns de Vries van Doesburgh; illustrated in R.E.O. Ekkart and G. Reichwein, Portret van Enkhuizen in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Enkhuizen (Zuiderzeemuseum) 1990-91, p. 66. was made in the year of his death.

Ban was a fairly good painter of simple likenesses influenced by the early Bartholomeus van der Helst, Dirck van Santvoort and Johannes Verspronck. Given the dates of works from his Enkhuizen period, he was probably an important local portraitist.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022

References
Moes in U. Thieme and F. Becker (eds.), Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, II, Leipzig 1908, pp. 433-34; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. pp. 426-28; Trauzeddel in Saur Allgemeines Künstlerlexikon: Die Bildenden Künstler aller Zeiten und Völker, VI, Munich/Leipzig 1992, pp. 550-51; M.E.W. Goosens, Schilders en de markt: Haarlem 1605-1635, diss., Leiden University 2001, pp. 66, 67; A. van der Willigen and F.G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525-1725, Leiden 2003, p. 31

Entry

There are five known male portraits by Gerbrand Ban, four of which are dated after 1647. The one in the Rijksmuseum was painted in 1650, and is closest to another, considerably larger 1652 oval with the picture of Simon Semeijns, who was a director of both the Dutch West India and East India companies (WIC and VOC respectively) and served several terms as an alderman in Enkhuizen.7Stichting Verzameling Semeijns de Vries van Doesburgh; illustrated in R.E.O. Ekkart and G. Reichwein, Portret van Enkhuizen in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Enkhuizen (Zuiderzeemuseum) 1990-91, p. 66. An oval Portrait of a Man in the Cevat Collection in Amsterdam was assigned to Ban in C. Brown, Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford 1981, p. 134, no. R 13, fig. 71; this attribution was rejected, though, in R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 432, note 19, where it is given to Barend Fabritius instead. Despite the small size of the present work, the artist tried to enliven the rather static poses he had given his other half-length sitters by showing this man with his right arm raised. The result is a likeness that is remarkably informal by Ban’s standards.

Oval supports for small portraits were quite common in the seventeenth century. In the second half of the 1640s, for instance, Gerard ter Borch painted a series in this format of the Dutch and Spanish representatives at the peace negotiations in Münster.8See, for example, S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, nos. 51, 52, 53, 55, 56. Like them, the present picture by Ban is on copper, the only time he used it, though the metal did offer opportunities for rendering highly elaborate and detailed scenes on its hard surface.9E.P. Bowron, ‘A Brief History of European Oil Paintings on Copper, 1560-1775’, in M.K. Komanecky (ed.), Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 1575-1775, exh. cat. Phoenix (Phoenix Art Museum)/Kansas City (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1998-99, pp. 9-30, esp. p. 23. It is possible that Ban made this exception because of the polished effect it could have, but although the picture was executed largely wet in wet and the surface is quite smooth, he did not modify his method to suit this particular support.10See Technical notes. For example, he defined the vents in the clothing with broad strokes of white paint, and the brushwork is also clearly visible in the flesh tones.

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

Literature

R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. pp. 428, 433, no. 4, with earlier literature

Collection catalogues

1887, p. 8, no. 54; 1903, p. 39, no. 426; 1934, p. 39, no. 426; 1976, p. 99, no. A 1345

Citation

Gerbrand Korevaar, 2022, 'Gerbrand Ban, Portrait of a Young Man, 1650', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.5912

(accessed 15 August 2025 06:01:37).

Footnotes

  • 1NHA, ARS, IS, inv. 166, nos. 100 (25 October 1886), 101 (25 October 1886), 102 (26 October 1886), 104 (27 October 1886), 119 (2 December 1886, no. 2633); NHA, ARS, Kop., inv. 289, p. 119, no. 267 (15 December 1886).
  • 2Present whereabouts unknown; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 427, fig. 1.
  • 3London, private collection; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 429, fig. 4.
  • 4Catalogue for the sale, London (Christie’s), 19 April 2000, no. 20 (ill.).
  • 5Present whereabouts unknown; R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban: Een aanvulling’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 40 (1992), p. 93, fig. 1.
  • 6Stichting Verzameling Semeijns de Vries van Doesburgh; illustrated in R.E.O. Ekkart and G. Reichwein, Portret van Enkhuizen in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Enkhuizen (Zuiderzeemuseum) 1990-91, p. 66.
  • 7Stichting Verzameling Semeijns de Vries van Doesburgh; illustrated in R.E.O. Ekkart and G. Reichwein, Portret van Enkhuizen in de Gouden Eeuw, exh. cat. Enkhuizen (Zuiderzeemuseum) 1990-91, p. 66. An oval Portrait of a Man in the Cevat Collection in Amsterdam was assigned to Ban in C. Brown, Carel Fabritius: Complete Edition with a Catalogue Raisonné, Oxford 1981, p. 134, no. R 13, fig. 71; this attribution was rejected, though, in R.E.O. Ekkart, ‘Gerbrand Ban’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 39 (1991), pp. 426-34, esp. p. 432, note 19, where it is given to Barend Fabritius instead.
  • 8See, for example, S.J. Gudlaugsson, Geraert Ter Borch, II, The Hague 1960, nos. 51, 52, 53, 55, 56.
  • 9E.P. Bowron, ‘A Brief History of European Oil Paintings on Copper, 1560-1775’, in M.K. Komanecky (ed.), Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 1575-1775, exh. cat. Phoenix (Phoenix Art Museum)/Kansas City (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art)/The Hague (Mauritshuis) 1998-99, pp. 9-30, esp. p. 23.
  • 10See Technical notes.